Every day around a million plastic water bottles end up in Australian landfills — a truly staggering thought, which is even more shocking when you consider that bottled water costs around 2,000 times more than tap water, with the O Initiative, Zip are encouraging people to start using public water fountains.
Zip Water, a company that has always been passionate about water and driven by sustainability, knows how ridiculous this obsession with plastic is. Their ‘The O Initiative’, driven by a commitment to reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in landfill, is proof of this.
Zip have partnered with Gretha Oost for The O Initiative, which encourages people to start using public water fountains. Zip provided the filtration systems for the fountains, to ensure that this free, publicly available water is also pure and clean.
These are not simply functional fountains, either. Oost, the founder of the innovative start-up, engaged local artist Georgie Flaircloth to create different designs for water fountains around Melbourne. Hand-painted scenes that depict the wider Almaville/St Kilda East community have been added to the fountains, including the Hank Marvin Markets, family picnics with children playing, and depictions of the often marginalised transgender and multicultural minorities.
“The O Initiative is based on the idea that, through art, we can create a positive association with drinking tap water from public fountains and reduce plastic waste associated with drinking bottled water,” Oost said.
With innovation in the water industry at the heart of the Zip mission, teaming up with Oost was a no-brainer.
“We’re very excited to be involved with The O Initiative and to be helping Gretha to engage the community through design and technology in her efforts to promote drinking filtered tap water,” says Zip CEO, John Doumani.
If you live in Melbourne and frequent the Hank Marvin Markets at Alma Park, you can fill your water bottle up for free at one of the fountains. Next stop for The O Initiative? Noosa and the Mornington Peninsula region.
A searchable and comprehensive guide for specifying leading products and their suppliers
Keep up to date with the latest and greatest from our industry BFF's!
Australia’s leading producer of solid-engineered oak flooring has recently launched a new suite of innovative resources to support creativity and ambition in the architecture and design community.
Bidding farewell to mundane and uninspired office spaces, colour has transformed our workplaces into layered and engaging environments. So we sit down with Karina Simpson, Hot Black’s Workplace Lead, to talk about the influence colour has on the workspace landscape through the prism of Herman Miller’s progressive colour philosophy.
Rainy Sydney played host to the INDE.Awards mixer event: an opportunity for the industry to come together and celebrate a 2020 programme unlike any other.
From the chef to the home cook, the Winning Appliances Richmond Showroom’s luxe design and elegant displays appeal to all. A range of the finest appliances, including the Zip HydroTap, are showcased in various kitchen designs, creating a retail experience that is dynamic and multi-sensory.
The internet never sleeps! Here's the stuff you might have missed
What makes Italian brand Tacchini so magical? Stylecraft with Tacchini shared some of this magic at four intimate events in Sydney and Melbourne… here’s what we experienced.
We have all felt it and continue to experience the ramifications of change. It’s in the air and workplace design is at the vanguard of creating new approaches to working. Design leads the way at the 2023 INDE.Awards as the spotlight shines on The Work Space category and a partner who has recently made a historic change on a global scale.
The idea behind ubiquitous inclusivity is undoubtedly an appealing one, which is why universal and accessible design principles have been gaining so much traction in recent years. Here, two renowned design experts weigh in on utilising these principles to create accessible bathrooms – and share the design thinking underpinning the process.